Hey, I'm Andrew, I am a gamer and a ROCKER!! I usually only play my 360, but if I am in the mood, I might play Mario Cart on my Wii. I would say my favortie games would have to be... Rock Band 3, Left 4 Dead 2, Bioshock, Amnesia: The Dark Descent, Half-Life 2, Metal Gear series and the Jak and Daxter series.. Right now, I am playing Mortal Kombat, Saints Row 2, Catherine and Halo: Reach.

I am just your good old average 20 year old gamer that enjoys his games. If you are curious about my name, it comes from my most popular character, Super Monk. I draw a comic with him as the main character, an monk with a hidden face behind an orange cloak that swears, drinks, fights, and all things a monk should not do.

Well, I guess I should also tell you some of my other favorite things as well, because we all enjoy movies and music as well. :)

I have gotten to know a lot of you in the past few months. Playing games with tons of amazing people from the community, you people feel like my second family. Video games have been in my life as far back as I can remember, I wouldn't be the same person if it wasn't for video games. So, I figured it might be appropriate to let you guys know more about me, while trying to connect it to video games as close as I can. This is my life so far, born and raised on video games.

As one of my friends said, me, as "french stewart meets drew carey with giant nostril".

Well, for all those that don't know, my name is Andrew. I was born in Florida and raised for the majority of my (current) life. I wasn't born in the best health however; born with a few problems such as Asthma, trouble with my speech and my brain having trouble depicting depth (background, foreground and such) and a really slow reaction time. For a while, I took special classes to help develop my motor skills. However, at the rate I was going, it would take a few good years at least to be semi-normal. One suggestion my doctor gave my parents was... video games. I remember my first time ever playing games when I was four. I walked into my parents room and saw my dad sitting on the bed. I asked him what he was doing and he gave me the controller. My very first game was the original Super Mario Bros. for the NES. After that day, I have been a gamer since. Slowly between taking my special classes, I was able to easier develop my skills within a couple years.

Me, with my Guitar Hero II signed shirt and weird room... yes, that is flowers on the wallpaper.

Life in my neighborhood was... not the best to be said. I lived in a decent street, but the area just over my back fence was festered with crime, murder and gangs. I never did get involved in any of that, thank goodness, thanks to meeting friends through gaming. Going into middle school was a frightening experience, especially if there was a fight every morning before school started (I am not exaggerating). Well, due to a busy work schedule, I had to stay after school for an extra hour. So, I would bring my Game Boy along with me, this is how I met my childhood friend Travis. We spent so many hours playing Advanced Wars, we even played it on field trips. I met even more, playing Pokemon (Blue version FTW) and soon more gamers slowly came. Without games, I might have fallen into the wrong crowd of people and went on a different path.

Around the age of fifteen, the gangs in my area were getting out of control and we couldn't afford to live there anymore. Leaving my whole family and best friends wasn't an easy thing to do. However, we moved, to the great (and boring as hell... actually, scratch the great part) state of Tennessee. I was depressed for a couple months, not having any family members or friends here. Shortly however, I met my best friends through, you guessed it, gaming. My brother, Eric, and I played a lot of Mario Cart on the DS after we got it for Christmas. Well, on the bus ride to school, we pulled out our DS and were asked by a gentlemen named Allen to join him and his friends in some Mario Cart. We played Mario Cart, yelling and cursing loudly as we rode to school, not wanting to ever get off of that bus. That is, until some asshole stole it, but nevertheless I had made my best friends.

[i] From left to right: My brother Eric, Simon and myself beating the shit out of each other in MKvsDCU

Oh, and for people that have always wondered where my gamertag/name come from, it is my most popular cartoon character. I haven't been the most creative kid, but I loved doodling and making up stories. I have been drawing since I was five, Super Monk being my first character. He obtained his powers from a radioactive doughnut and gained super strength and can leap a building in one fart. Why do I bring this up? I parodied a lot of video games and had characters pop in from time to time. I haven't drawn anything in a while... I really need to.

A parody of God of War, Super Monk of a dead Superior Blob

And this leads to my current life, gaming leading me to you all. I may have not had the most exciting or great life but I wanted to share with you all who I am. I am so proud to be part of this community. You all have no idea how lucky I feel to even know you guys. Thanks for being here and taking me through some crazy nights. But what will gaming do for me in the future? Who knows, maybe presidency? No...

Well, Duke Nukem Forever is a real thing. Many lucky gamers were surprised that there was a demo also with this announcement last year at Pax. However, those of us that couldn't go, we just watched. Well now that will soon change. I have got my hands on an extra code for access to the Duke Nukem Forever demo thanks to a friend and I'm passing the savings to yooouuuuu! Welcome to a little contest I like to call "I'm here to kick ass and I'm all out of kick ass".

Now, to be entered all you have to do is leave your own kick ass phrase in the comments. Think of it as a phrase you would say before you unload your hot... lead, yeah lead, into the enemies. The contest will run on until Sunday, January 9th at 11:59pm est. I will update me blog with the winner's name and PM that person with instructions and the code. Good luck you all!

So, Rock Band 3, it's a game. I love the Rock Band series dearly, it's the only game series I have spent hundreds of dollars on and have spent the most hours on. The newest installment is a step up (in almost every area) than the previous installments. So after playing and beating all the road challenges, I figured it was time to jump into the online quickplay. You wanna know what I found there? A big mess of "Rush to choose your songs" and a bunch of assholes. So let me tell you why I will never touch online quickplay ever again.

1. Race

So when you get your band all together and go choose a song, it's a race to choose your songs. I prefered the Rock Band 2 way of quickplay where you took turns choosing your song. This new way of choosing to makes a mess of a setlist that usually stretches between 6-12 songs. Yeah, I am not going to sit through a setlist of that many songs.

2. Keyboard Compatible Songs

Yeah, you see that little symbol next to my name that looks like tire tracks? Yeah, that means I'm playing a keyboard. Apparently this doesn't go through the thick skulls of some people as they just choose their death metal and DLC that doesn't have keyboard. I know I can play bass or guitar on the keyboard, but with setlists that are so long, there is mostly songs that don't have keyboard in them. Due to this, I have to sit through songs until a song with keyboard finally comes up. This has me yelling or just quitting and then the whole process repeats itself.

3. Assholes

Yes, I know your song isn't first, deal with it. Man you suck, you're already failing... wait a minute. You're failing on purpose! Yeah, this has happened to me many times before. Some asshole won't want to play a song and the will try to fail as fast as they can to move onto the next one. This infuriates me more than the other two reasons to the point where I will quit and rage hard. Just thinking about it pisses me off...
If you wanna play some Rock Band 3 with me, invite me! Otherwise, the online quickly portion of Rock Band 3 will get no more loving from me.

You shock an android to freeze it in it's tracks as soon as it de-cloaks in front of you, stunning it. You force push it over the ledge and then quickly turn to force grip an ice ball coming at you. You then throw it at two storm troopers, freezing them. Force pushing them, you shatter them across the floor into little shards. You turn to the final enemy in front of you, the hulking freezing robot. You grab another ice ball it shoots at you and throw it back, freezing the robot in its' tracks. You then quickly dash at it and release the fury of your dual lightsabers at it. Before a few seconds, the robot is weak and a QTE event plays out. You jump up and fall, cutting the bots' arm off, freezing itself. You quickly charge a force push and blast it into a million pieces.

I may not be the best describer in the world, but I know when I feel like a bad ass. The Force Unleashed II may not be able to compete with Reach, Rock Band 3, or even Black Ops but that doesn't mean it isn't a great adventure. Don't get me wrong, the game has flaws, the 4.5 hour long campaign and unbelievable story are the major ones. However, isn't the
You shock an android to freeze it in it's tracks as soon as it de-cloaks in front of you, stunning it. You force push it over the ledge and then quickly turn to force grip an ice ball coming at you. You then throw it at two storm troopers, freezing them. Force pushing them, you shatter them across the floor into little shards. You turn to the final enemy in front of you, the hulking freezing robot. You grab another ice ball it shoots at you and throw it back, freezing the robot in its' tracks. You then quickly dash at it and release the fury of your dual lightsabers at it. Before a few seconds, the robot is weak and a QTE event plays out. You jump up and fall, cutting the bots' arm off, freezing itself. You quickly charge a force push and blast it into a million pieces.

I may not be the best describer in the world, but I know when I feel like a bad ass. The Force Unleashed II may not be able to compete with Halo: Reach, Rock Band 3, or even COD: Black Ops but that doesn't mean it isn't a great adventure. Don't get me wrong, the game has flaws, the 4.5 hour long campaign and unbelievable story are the major ones. However, isn't the main point of the game supposed to entertain us?

I believe (except the story) that this is a great improvement over the original Force Unleashed. The combos and animations are smooth as butter. Your attacks fly as you cut limbs off of poor stormtroopers and send them flying as you finish the combo. The in-game and cutscene graphics have been upped to add the eye-candy as you blow everything away. Mainly, the gameplay elements have been upped for the sequel, but the same can't be said for the story and length however.

The story starts out as you are being tested to see if you can resist the previous Starkillers' temptations. He obviously fail and start having flashbacks of Vader betraying him. He then starts his (short) journey as he breaks out and escapes from Kamino. From there on out, the story goes downhill and there are cop-outs that I will not mention due to them being spoilers. The characters seem a bit... off as well. I can't really put my hand on it, but the returning characters don't seem as lively as they did in the original Force Unleashed.

All complaints aside, I really had a great time with this game. Killing massive amounts of stormtroopers in multiple ways never gets old. It may be because I am a hack and slash and Star Wars fan, but I really reccomend that you pick this up for a rental at least to see what kind of badass you can really be.

Score: 8.5

Editor's Note: I really do apologize about the lack of pictures in the article, but I cannot figure out how to get my pictures over properly. They just end up being tiny or url text. So if someone could message me the proper way, I would greatly appreciate it. As for now, refer to my uploaded photos for references.

I have been killed by this enemy more times than I would like to think. I shudder with fear every time my eyes lay upon this enemy. I can't even do anything to kill this enemy. This enemy I am talking about isn't even alive. This enemy, is a saw blade. These objects of frustration of made multiple appearances in platflormers that I have played this year. Mostly on Limbo and Super Meat Boy.

These menaces have always kept me on my toes. Making me react with the up most reflexes and timing skills. Remember those sequences in Limbo where you were riding on a sliding box that was on course to a saw blade? Yeah, I can remember myself feeling so intense that my palms started to sweat as I timed my jumps. While the saw blades weren't the only enemy, they were the ones that appeared the most and made me react with fear.

Have you ever loved a game so much, but hate it at the same time. I have neve
I have been killed by this enemy more times than I would like to think. I shudder with fear every time my eyes lay upon this enemy. I can't even do anything to kill this enemy. This enemy I am talking about isn't even alive. This enemy, is a saw blade. These objects of frustration of made multiple appearances in platflormers that I have played this year. Mostly on Limbo and Super Meat Boy.

These menaces have always kept me on my toes. Making me react with the up most reflexes and timing skills. Remember those sequences in Limbo where you were riding on a sliding box that was on course to a saw blade? Yeah, I can remember myself feeling so intense that my palms started to sweat as I timed my jumps. While the saw blades weren't the only enemy, they were the ones that appeared the most and made me react with fear.

Have you ever loved a game so much, but hate it at the same time. I have never felt this until I have played Super Meat Boy. Everything about this game is fantastic, but if it wasn't for those well placed, multiple saw blades... While jumping between saw blades, I gripped my controller so tightly with excitement and fear, that when I let go, they were curled up and throbbing hard. So here's to the enemy that will always pop up when I least want him. Thank you saw blades, and fuck you too.

So yes... if you haven't seen me on here, that's not just you. I don't often write blogs because well... I am not very good at it. Hell, I started this blog off topic even, fuck my ass.... here goes my shout-outs to my FNF crew.

GarethxxgodMy first real Destructoid friend, I just jumped into one of his FNF games one night and bam... we pretty much connect instantly. I enjoy playing with him anytime and will always be one of my greatest friends on here... even if his chuckle does sound creepy at times. You are the PB to my J, the Robin to my Batman, and the fuck to my ass... wait... that didn't come out right.
Games we've played: Halo: Reach, Dead Rising 2, Splinter Cell: Conviction and Left 4 Dead

SteezyXLAh, young Steezy, my pupil, hopefully he can rise up to my greatness one day... In all seriousness though, he is another great friend that I am fortunate enough to have. That, and he makes me look good in some Halo: Reach matches too. Here's to you Steezy, keep on fighting towards the top.
Games we've played: Halo: Reach

Corduroy Turtle....Moving on
Games we've played: Halo: Reach

MrAndyDixonAnd here we end up at MrAndyDixon, Mr. Boner himself. It's odd how we met. I kept hearing that I sound exactly like him, so I was excited when he finally jumped into a party with me. It is true... we do sound alike, except I don't say boners every time I breath. He is an amazingly fun person to just chat with. If everything is serious, Andy here will change that quickly. I guess you could say just thinking about him gives me... a boner. YEEEAAAAAHHHHHHHHH!

Im sorry if i am forgetting anyone, but you guys... make me look forward to the end of every week now and I cross my fingers and hope that you guys are on when I randomly play as well. Thanks for the fun times so far, I hope they don't end anytime soon.